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Wales has been ‘overrun by totalitarian nationalists’ and ‘intolerant’ Welsh speakers says author

19 Feb 2022 2 minute read
A Yes Cymru march in 2019. Picture by Mark Mansfield

Wales has been “overrun by totalitarian nationalists” according to an author who has previously come under fire for his attacks on the Welsh language.

In a review of the book Brittle with Relics by Richard King, written in the Telegraph, Roger Lewis says of Welsh nationalism that “the psychology and motivation were totalitarian”.

“What is evident from Brittle With Relics is that the origins of the Welsh language resurgence, which began bubbling 60 years ago, were very nasty indeed, the nationalistic impetus having ‘uncomfortable fascist resonances’,” he says.

“My own family, based in Bedwas, in the Rhymney Valley, even held the belief, uncontroversial at the time, that English was altogether the superior culture,” he says.

However, the author from Monmouthshire adds that “since I left for university and for good in 1978, [Wales has become] a foreign country, its language as comprehensible to outsiders as Igbo or Bulgarian”.

He also adds that “fluent Welsh speakers were, and are, intolerant of those trying to acquire proficiency”.

Roger Lewis previously came under fire for calling the Welsh language an “appalling and moribund monkey language” in the Daily Mail in 2011.

He attacked the language again in the Spectator in 2018, accusing the “Welsh language mob” of turning “my beloved South Wales into a phoney foreign country”.


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hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago

Poor old Roger. Must have mislaid his meds again ! Needs a carer but who would bother with such a snobby supremacist twit.

Cathy Hill
Cathy Hill
2 years ago
Reply to  hdavies15

Unfortunately, you can’t medicate bad personalities or stupidity away, which is a crying shame considering Roger.

Mawkernewek
2 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Hill

Unfortunately there seems to be a market for these kind of rambling rants disguised as a book review.

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Hill

So what is the remedy ? A swift round with the old bolt gun behind the shed ?

Cathy Hill
Cathy Hill
2 years ago

Slowly the English Establishment lines up to attack Cymru.
Resist and vote out your local Tory.

Marc
2 years ago
Reply to  Cathy Hill

Seriously , vote for who . Labour , liberal or Plaid , each with open border policy . .the only problem I see in Wales is lacking in our own confidence ..our sports teams take the knee for every cause bar our own ..AAGil is somebody would of loved to of met in dark alley .Clarkson same . Don’t politicolize the argument. Just sound like a Marxist with own agenda . No party will look after Wales , Plaid included , until we take care of OUR OWN first nobody has right to be pro Labour. Every single think since… Read more »

Last edited 2 years ago by Marc
Phil
Phil
2 years ago

… Every circus has at least one clown….

Cathy Hill
Cathy Hill
2 years ago
Reply to  Phil

Unfortunately, the Tories have a circus full of clowns run by hyenas and jackals.

Gary H
Gary H
2 years ago

To me, this seems to be a fascist, racialist and discriminationary attitude based on English neo-fascist thought. Oh, in case anyone thinks that I am just mouthing nationalist propaganda, I am public school educated and from London. People like him should be sent from the UK to South Georgia to cool down.

Richard 1
Richard 1
2 years ago
Reply to  Gary H

I agree, and I’m also an ex-Londoner. When I moved to Wales in 1975 I was warned that plenty of Welsh people despised their own country. I’m glad to see right-wingers adopting cymrophobia – it’s clearly motivated by their fear that the Union is unravelling.

Gareth Wyn Jones
Gareth Wyn Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Gary H

South Georgia belongs to Argentina

Gareth Wyn Jones
Gareth Wyn Jones
2 years ago

You really are a nasty bit work

Steve Duggan
Steve Duggan
2 years ago

I love the trend by the Unionists recently of dragging out Welshmen, now living in England, to bash everything Welsh. What makes them think that someone Welsh bashing their own country will stem the march towards independence?? It’s a sign they are growing desperate.

Last edited 2 years ago by Steve Duggan
David Wall
David Wall
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Duggan

Too true Steve. The phrase Dic Sion Dafydd has always used for people who refused to accept their Welshness but these new Wales bashers are far more sinister.

Aled Rees
Aled Rees
2 years ago
Reply to  David Wall

dic sion dafydd?
dic will do.

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve Duggan

Very desperate

GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
2 years ago

What a liar. We want more democracy and that starts by getting rid of your monarchy and becoming a fully democratic independent nation with our own seat on the UN. Absolute projection by an undemocratic Britnat rat.

GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
2 years ago

Nice projection ,nerd.

J A M Davies
J A M Davies
2 years ago

The Anglocentric, Brit-Nat establishment must be worried if the exponential proliferation of bilious anti-Wales rhetoric is any kind of yardstick. What gets me is Lewis’s staggering lack of irony when he talks of ‘fascism’ and ‘totaltarianism’ in respect of Wales, considering the regime he adheres to, and the cultural genocide he seems to favour.

GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
2 years ago

He also adds that “fluent Welsh speakers were, and are, intolerant of those trying to acquire proficiency”. That’s an absolute god damn lie. Why is this lying idiot who hasn’t lived in Wales for half a century being given this platform to spread his bile?

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago
Reply to  GW Atkinson

I have never met any Welsh speakers who behave like that, I think he is projecting his own ideas after all he says himself that he grew up in a family that believed “… English was altogether the superior culture,” says it all really

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  GW Atkinson

To attack the vymri that’s why it’s the old drip drip drip affect its been going on for centuries

Rhosddu
Rhosddu
2 years ago

The “Welsh = fascism” drivel is a well-used trope by BritNats that is becoming tiresome. It is beyond belief that a Welsh ex-pat should hate his own country to this extent.
Also, his claim that Welsh speakers are intolerant of learners is empirically false.

CJPh
CJPh
2 years ago

What? See, the dearly departed AA Gil and the very-much-still-about Jeremy Clarkson took their swipes at Cymru with their tongues barely grazing their cheeks. They had the (barely) plausible deniability of “just a joke”. These comments are just lies. Seems like we’re winning this one.

Grayham Jones
2 years ago

What an Idiot take is welsh passport of him And keep him in England

Dewi Williamswhat
Dewi Williamswhat
2 years ago

With respect, when spewing out parrot fashion in an indiscriminating way expressions such as “totalitarianism” your are really demonstrating the hypocrisy of your own intolerance. You would do better to first understand the accuracy of the meaning of this misused expression when describing an organisation that clearly desires to continue existing in a democratic state whenever it may achieve its final objective. As a non- Welsh speaker aged 85 years I’ve never during this long life experienced towards me a hint of this imaginary intolerance from this much ill-judged maligned source.

Dewi Williamswhat
Dewi Williamswhat
2 years ago

To put what I’ve already said in its proper context. I was replying to Pob Lwc but is seems he has now gone of air.

Grayham Jones
2 years ago

This why it’s time for a new wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 we in wales have got to stop being little Englanders and and be proud to be welsh kick all English party’s out of wales that’s the Tories Labour and all Brexit party’s

Gareth
Gareth
2 years ago

These attacks are a result of the growing awareness in the establishment, of a new dynamic in Cymru. As the call for indy grows, so the attacks increase. I am sure the same has happened over the last decade in Scotand, now it is our turn. As the union comes under its biggest threat it has ever faced on these islands, expect more of the same, and we should counter this with positivity, and facts that back up the argument for indy.,

Ed Jones
Ed Jones
2 years ago

Poor Roger, hated by the English for coming from Wales, hated by the Welsh because of the utter bin he truly is…

crwtyddol
crwtyddol
2 years ago

A simple test: Substitute the word Black for Welsh. Good luck with that!
He hasn’t lived here for years, how does he know? I don’t pronounce on the cultuire of the Bulgarians, or others, simply because I know nothing of them. I don’t consider them or others suspect.
This view is the symptom of a massive inferiority complex. I feel sorry for him and I think he’d benefit from analysis.

Brian Clement
Brian Clement
2 years ago

Brexit unleashed a particularly viscous English nationalism that uses the mask of Britishness to batter the Celts into submission. So many examples are now popping up on a daily basis. It is a sign of desperation to save their beloved Union, and we must expect these attacks to continue and intensify. Still waiting for a Tory backbencher, or someone from the London media, to propose that we drop Y Ddraig Goch in favour of the Butcher’s Apron.

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  Brian Clement

They can stick their butchers apron where the sun don’t shine

Ernie The Smallholder
Ernie The Smallholder
2 years ago

But that is what the UK Establishment really think of our nation Cymru.
With that in mind there can be no union.

They are the “totalitarian nationalists”.
Was it not their decision to leave the European Union knowing it would harm Cymru, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and England itself?

Dave
Dave
2 years ago

what I find funny is that the platforms used to propagate these Anti-Welsh views are not even based in the UK for example the Daily Mail is based in Bermuda thus avoiding paying Taxes here. Madness but funny at the same time #IndyWales

I.Humphrys
I.Humphrys
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Really? Well, maybe we should always follow the money.

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Naturally Tories and their supporter don’t like paying tax

Clive Fussell
Clive Fussell
2 years ago
George
George
2 years ago

Although written in the awful Telegraph I thought it was quite helpful really:

What we want to move away from:

““My own family, based in Bedwas, in the Rhymney Valley, even held the belief, uncontroversial at the time, that English was altogether the superior culture,” he says.””

What we don’t want to move towards:

“”Welsh nationalism that “the psychology and motivation were totalitarian… “fluent Welsh speakers were, and are, intolerant of those trying to acquire proficiency””.

Cynan
Cynan
2 years ago
Reply to  George

You will not find a Welsh person in Bedwas who has ever held that view

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
2 years ago

Having read the post below and agreed with the majority, it strikes me that we ought to grumble to NC for perpetually scanning the Right Wing Media for anti-Welsh stories and then repeating them. Speaking personally, I do not care what the Right Wing Off-shore Based Billionaired owned media say about Wales. I know it for a lovely country, with normal friendly people (many of whom are immigrants from England and elesewhere) and a country which would do a lot better with greater devolution and ultimately independence. So come on NC, ignore the Right Wing Media and lets hear about… Read more »

Clive Fussell
Clive Fussell
2 years ago

I had the misfortune of going to school with Billy no mates Roger. At Bassaleg school one could study French, German, Spanish and Latin. Welsh was not available. It was not taught anywhere in Monmouthshire at that time. Language fascism? The only fascism Roger experienced was the one directed at Welsh. So in the vernacular of his ‘beloved South Wales ‘, Your twp butt.

Chronos
Chronos
2 years ago

No, we just want to preserve our culture. There is a word in Cymraeg, “brogarwch,” which doesn’t translate incredibly well into Saesneg. It encapsulates the feeling of belonging, the love of Wales, the joy of living and working in a place where you would rather be nowhere else at all.
I suspect the bitterness is actually jealousy because you don’t have to be a native born Cymro to feel this. All you have to do is embrace being Welsh and you are, which is something the snobs over the border can’t understand.

Llefain
Llefain
2 years ago

I had the exact opposite problem of fluent Welsh speakers being too nice, too encouraging, and too welcoming for my anxious little self on Twitter. It was the most positivity and acceptance that I had ever experienced in my life. It was overwhelming.
I’d suggest that if anyone has an attitude with this man (though I doubt, given his stances, that he’d have really tried to acquire Welsh to have even anecdotal evidence for his assumption) it might be due to the bigotry and superiority that drips off him like a rancid meat sweat on a warm summer’s day.

Ed Jones
Ed Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Llefain

That last sentence is a thing of beauty, I may well borrow it! 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿😀

Cynan
Cynan
2 years ago

Aww diddums! Poor little Wenglish Uncl Tŵm has to suck up to his English masters by hurling slurs at the elder nation. How utterly pathetic. And how utterly unremarkable that the Daily Heil and the Dicktater gave him a platform to racially abuse us.
Stop calling us “your beloved South Wales”. You opted out. You are not one of us.

William Glyn Thomas
William Glyn Thomas
2 years ago

The title of this article and its content reflect most accurately the English attitude towards anyone who speaks anything other than English.
The English language, more than most other languages is a “b*****d” language in that it is a collaboration of many other languages. For instance there are more than 14,000 French words in the English language, its just that they have mutilated the original pronunciation
Most words ending in “ion” are French.
Its not surprising as the official language of England , for several hundred years was Norman French.

Cynan
Cynan
2 years ago

Cherry picking universities to compare I see. How very English of you. Or rather how very EngNat of you. It is ironic that slavering nationalists hurl abuse at us for opting OUT of their stupid OneNation nationalism.

Lionel Schwarz
Lionel Schwarz
2 years ago
Reply to  Cynan

William Glyn Thomas said the English don’t learn modern languages.

Pro rata rate they study way more than the Welsh.

Get angry at the facts all you like.

Dewi Williamswhat
Dewi Williamswhat
2 years ago
Reply to  Lionel Schwarz

You glibly talk of facts. You should not present them as confirmed facts without provenance. Once this is given it gives an opportunity for your alleged facts to be properly scrutinised. This is a far better approach for you to take than being so dismissive.

Lionel Schwarz
Lionel Schwarz
2 years ago

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Recent trends in modern foreign
language exam entries in anglophone
countries
Darren Churchward

Page 16.

That UK Government OFQUAL research.

Dewi Williamswhat
Dewi Williamswhat
2 years ago
Reply to  Lionel Schwarz

That’s much better, Interesting sources still to be checked. I’ve carefully read what William Glyn Thomas has said and with respect you misquote him. He does not say “the English don’t learn modern languages.” He alludes to a perceived English attitude towards anyone who speaks anything other than English. Certainly a debatable point but he does not assert that Welsh children study modern languages more than the English. It is you who chose to broach this issue by implication with a contrary view.

hdavies15
hdavies15
2 years ago

British Council reports over recent years have tended to be critical of the rate of take up of language courses right across the UK. The traditional popular courses in French and German have declined, some growth in Spanish otherwise nothing to be happy about. I’m also concerned that pupils in Wales, regardless of whether they are bilingual or monolingual in native languages, are evidently shunning Maths and Sciences/Engineering and opting for the soft subjects which often leads to glittering careers serving meals, stacking shelves while the competition in India and China are wiping the floor with us in terms of… Read more »

Lionel Schwarz
Lionel Schwarz
2 years ago
Reply to  hdavies15

See my reply to “Cynan.”

Ieuan Evans
Ieuan Evans
2 years ago

Go back to sleep

Richard
Richard
2 years ago

Just why do these folk who left Wales at 16 or so and live away for years think we live in a museum to be popped back to for family funerals and events..? They seem disappointed we have moved onwards and upwards, more confident and outward looking towards our destination…,as a nation.

Last edited 2 years ago by Richard
David Lloyd Owen
David Lloyd Owen
2 years ago

Interesting to note what he claims to have a MLitt at Magdalen, Oxon., with a First Class Honours. The only problem with this is that (I went to Jesus, for a Doc in Choughs so I ought to know) this degree classification does not exist for the MLitt. I am never too comfortable about people with these kind of narratives.

Rob
Rob
2 years ago

If people are programmed to believe that English culture is the superior culture then what do you expect? That’s not fascism or bigotry that’s common sense. I am not a Welsh speaker but I know many people who are, and I have never heard a single one of them treat me any differently or consider me to be less Welsh than they are. However if your going to disrespect other peoples cultures, languages or identities then why should they respect yours? Furthermore non-Welsh speakers are never going to be treated as second class citizens in an independent or fully devolved… Read more »

Mark
Mark
2 years ago

Wow! This bloke has got one hell of chip on his shoulder,

Dail y Goeden
Dail y Goeden
2 years ago

Forty-three comments so far..
Let me just say that I felt sorry for any Igbo and Bulgarian speakers who might happen to read this. (Yes, many of those good people are bilingual – and more than bilingual: it’s a world thing..) We must apologise on behalf of the UK if this gentleman’s comparison felt hurtful to them.
For ourselves: much as others have written here, about our language in our country: “Yma’r ym – a hi ar waith.” [We’re here, folks – and our language is active and effective.”]

Wrexhamian
Wrexhamian
2 years ago

You wish.
They actually do the opposite of that, sorry.

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago

What total rubbish, his career must be flagging so he attacks the Welsh language to get attention

R W
R W
2 years ago

Roger Lewis is the one who shows himself to be intolerant by besmirching those who have differing views to his own blinkered view of the world he lives in.

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago

I have never met any fluent Welsh speakers who are intolerant of those trying to learn the language, I think he is projecting his own ideas after all he says himself that he grew up in a family that believed “… English was altogether the superior culture,” says it all really

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  Stephen Owen

He’s suffering from delusions of grandeur

Stephen Owen
Stephen Owen
2 years ago
Reply to  George Bodley

As well as projecting his own feelings of superiority onto others

Last edited 2 years ago by Stephen Owen
Ieuan Evans
Ieuan Evans
2 years ago

I’ve just seen his photograph on line and it seems to me he could do with losing weight. Perhaps he should shed that heavy chip he has on his shoulder. It might make him lighter but it wouldn’t help his looks or intelligence.

Paul
Paul
2 years ago

Do they really … What flavour of hate fuelled English supremacist are you then? Or just fishing perhaps? On the back of a hatred for Wales of course.

CJPh
CJPh
2 years ago

Thank you for once again showing us that the whichever-gov-funded troll farm you live on haven’t developed enough tech to allow their trolls to form more than one sentence.

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
2 years ago

If anything this fool has described Brexit Britain and its supporters not Welsh Nationalism.

Rhosddu
Rhosddu
2 years ago

Only if you genuinely believe that intolerance of anti-Welsh bigotry is a bad thing.

R W
R W
2 years ago

I assume you’re talking about British Nationalists like Roger Lewis, in which case I completely agree with you!!

Dewi Williamswhat
Dewi Williamswhat
2 years ago

You need to give yourself a proper perspective. By the same token it can be argued that your opposing hostile views are also intolerant. If this website is so much a proof of this exceptional intolerance you are claiming then it certainly is not discriminating against the entries you are regularly making. Like all nations the English are nationalists but I’ve an inkling that you do not see English nationalists as being intolerant.

Sian
Sian
2 years ago

To Mr Lewis,
I am so sorry you take this view of your country of birth. It’s a shame & probably a complete lack of understanding that you have these views. Perhaps it’s better that you live across the boarder with like minded people. Bigots comes to mind. Unfortunately we have them here as well,but these bigots feel the same as you,but towards the English, then they did invade Britain and literally beat the language out of us

George Bodley
George Bodley
2 years ago
Reply to  Sian

Almost committed cultural genocide

JJJ
JJJ
2 years ago

Stop giving these c***s airtime. He’s irrelevant, and only becomes relevant with articles like this highlighting his ridiculous views.

Henry Harris
Henry Harris
2 years ago

Wales will never ever be an independent, sovereign nation. It is an electoral and economic impossibility. Even with a totalitarian enforced language apartheid the language is as dead as the European Union too. Why is a large portion of wales voting Tory then if you @YesCymru idiots believe that the majority of wales supports the economic and electoral impossibility that is welsh independence? Let’s not have any concerns regarding nuclear Armageddon either as Adam Price flew to Kiev as an international peace negotiator last week. Muppets

Wrexhamian
Wrexhamian
2 years ago
Reply to  Henry Harris

Leaving it 5 days too late to get a response, mate, so all that BritNat claptrap wasted. Off you pop.

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